It might be an understatement to say Jimmie Vaughan is a Fender guy. Not only does he have his own Artist Series Stratocaster, but when we met to chat in Austin, one was hanging in Fender's showroom.
“All my heroes had one,” he says. “Buddy Guy, Buddy Holly, all the guys that I really liked. And I always thought they just looked so good, and then when I finally got one, they sound great too.”
Surprisingly though, his first guitar wasn’t a Fender; it was a 3/4 scale Gibson, which he still has. His first Fender though is another story. “This guy in LA has it. He’s got it for sale for a million bucks,” he says. “I’m not kidding you.”
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Although Vaughan draws a lot of inspiration from Albert King, Freddie King and B.B. King — the Three Kings — one of the people he really remembers was a friend of his father’s. A man named Leonard, who frequented Vaughan’s house to play dominos with his parents, once asked him, “What do you like?” To which Vaughan replied, “I like blues.” And as soon as his father’s friend played a blues lick for him, Vaughan was hooked.
Check out the rest of this Reverb Soundcheck to hear more about Jimmie Vaughan’s gear, growing up and playing guitar with Stevie, and how he comes up with his own sound while still drawing influence from the greats.